EDINBURGH 2025: Rebecca Perry Guest Blog

Looking Back Without Rose-Coloured Glasses

Revisiting a character you created in your twenties is a strange experience. Joanie, the scrappy, anthropology-trained barista at the heart of Confessions of a Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl, was born out of frustration and big dreams. At the time, I’d just graduated from theatre school, convinced I was destined to play Shakespearean heroines and Shavian wit machines. Instead, I found myself grinding through auditions, constantly told I “wasn’t enough of this” or was “too much of that.”

Like many twenty-somethings, I felt unheard and unseen. So, I made my own work. What began as a post-grad coping mechanism in a coffee shop became a solo show that changed my life. Writing and performing Joanie gave me something the audition circuit didn’t: agency. It let me say, “Here I am. This is my voice.”

Now, a decade later, I’m revisiting Joanie as an entirely different person. I’m older, calmer, and grateful for that time in my early twenties—but no longer trapped in it. What was once raw frustration now feels like happy nostalgia.

There’s a certain hilarity in watching your 20-something self onstage, let alone being the person playing her. Joanie’s relentless determination, her refusal to settle, even her naïve optimism is both inspiring and a little cringe. But who doesn’t have moments between 20 and 25 they’d rather forget? I just happened to catalogue them into a comedic solo show. The difference is that, at the time, I didn’t see it as “branding” or “personal storytelling.” I was just trying to survive and make sense of a messy world. Today, Gen Z would call it content creation—and monetize it. In many ways, Joanie was doing what’s now an entire career path: taking your chaos and turning it into something worth sharing.

What’s unexpectedly delightful is how much the show has become a time capsule. The original production was set in 2013/2014 Toronto specifically, The Annex, which is analogous to Shoreditch in London. Immediately, you can picture it: flannel shirts, man-buns, crocheted beanies, owl necklaces. It lives in that specific cultural moment, and there’s comfort in witnessing someone else’s coming-of-age story as an audience member, giving you pause to reflect on your own.

That’s why nostalgia works: whether it’s Spice Girls tribute nights or Backstreet Boys at the Vegas Sphere. It’s not just about the thing itself, but who you were when you loved them. For me, performing Coffeeshop Girl again is like opening a time capsule and showing audiences my awkward, hopeful younger self and then inviting them to laugh and reflect with me.

And coffee shops haven’t gone anywhere—and they won’t. They’ve been gathering places for centuries, somewhere between public square and private refuge. What’s shifted is the way we use them. Back when Joanie was first created, coffee shops were already “third spaces” for studying, working, and socializing, but the technology of connection was different. Dating websites like Plenty of Fish were just emerging, and online dating still carried stigma. Most people still met face-to-face first. Joanie’s world was one of spontaneous, in-person interactions—watching humanity unfold in its raw, unfiltered form.

Today, coffee shops are still meeting spots, but our online lives lead the way. People come in on first dates with someone they matched on Hinge. Others use them as remote offices, earbuds in, Zoom calls on mute. And of course, coffee shop culture has its own digital subculture now: latte art competitions go viral, independent cafés curate their Instagram aesthetics, and the barista you just met might have a six-figure side hustle as a TikTok influencer.

And yet, the essence remains. Coffee shops are still where we escape our routines, whether to connect, study, or simply treat ourselves to a flat white that tastes like care. That’s what keeps Joanie’s story relevant - it’s about finding humanity in everyday encounters, no matter how much the world changes.

Returning to Joanie after ten years feels less like reliving frustration and more like honouring it. I’m no longer the scrappy young woman throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. I’m someone who knows what did stick: writing, performing, and telling stories that resonate beyond my own experience.

What I love most about doing the show now is that it’s not just my story anymore. Audiences bring their own nostalgia, their own memories of who they were in their twenties, and together we laugh at it all, flaws and all. That’s the beauty of time: it softens the cringe and amplifies the joy.

Coffee shops may look different. The customers may be scrolling instead of chatting. But the questions at the heart of the show - what are we doing with our lives and how do we make sense of the mess? - are just as relevant now as they were in 2013. Maybe even more so.